Four Things That Cause Marketing & Sales Misalignment and How to Fix Them

We're thrilled to present this guest post by Carlos Hidalgo of The Annuitas Group. Read on for his prescription of how to fix the ails plaguing sales and marketing.

Marketing
and sales alignment continues to be a major challenge for B2B organizations.
Just last week, Forrester released a report showing that only 8% of organizations claim tight alignment between
marketing and sales. Considering the volumes of content that have been written
about this topic, one would think that the issue would have been solved by now.
But it isn’t. And for many companies, the “alignment gap” seems to be growing.
Perhaps the reason is that marketing and sales misalignment is not the core
issue, but only a symptom of deeper problems. So maybe the question isn’t “How
can we align marketing and sales?” Instead, we should be asking “What are the problems that are causing the
lack of alignment?”

To answer
this question, below are four issues causing marketing and sales misalignment
and steps you can take to fix them.

1. A Lack of Focus

Most
conflict situations are the result of clashing points of view. Conflict
continues when each side tries to convince the other that their view is right.
The disconnect between marketing and sales is no different. Both sides spend an
inordinate amount of energy stating their case, trying to get the other to see
the world from their perspective. Unfortunately, the casualty of this internal
tug-of-war is the buyers. They are the ones that often get overlooked and
ignored.

Buyers don’t
care about the internal frustrations within your organization. They want to
have a dialogue with a vendor that can assure them they will get full value
from their investment. They want a partner that helps them improve their
business. When marketing and sales
organizations begin the finger-pointing, the buyers are the ones who get left
out. Eventually, they’ll go somewhere else.

Getting
both marketing and sales to focus on the customer is a major step in closing
the internal gap. Here are two ideas to help shift the focus:

Have marketing attend sales reviews. Let them actively participate by asking questions so
they can further understand the buying process. This will help them readjust
their perception of the customer and enable better engagement with customers.

Conduct joint customer visits. This can also be extended to sales calls. Marketing and sales should make a habit
of visiting buyers and customers together. Asking the customer about their
process, pain and vision for what’s next will allow both sides to see the world
from their customer’s eyes.

2. Pursuing the Wrong Goals

I hate to
say it, but this one falls almost entirely on marketing.

Historically
marketers rate poorly when it comes to establishing goals. Many marketers
measure success on metrics such as the number of opens, bounces, click-rates,
and downloads. While these measurements can help determine the relevance of
content and campaigns, they are only a means to the end. More importantly,
metrics such as the number of sales accepted leads, marketing contribution to
pipeline and marketing contribution to revenue tell the true story of how
marketing is doing.

Marketers
are playing a more vital role in B2B organizations than ever before. It is
imperative that they start measuring and tracking how their efforts impact
revenue. After all, this is the language of CEOs. When they ask, “How are
things going in marketing?”, they don’t want to know about opens and clicks.
They want to know what has been done to “make the cash register ring”.

3. Poor Compensation Models

The life
of a salesperson is a 90-day roller coaster ride. Most companies develop their sales
quota based on the 90-day quarter. This, of course, (for public companies) accommodates
shareholder expectations and earnings reports. However even many privately held
organizations live on a 90-day quota system. The problem with a 90-day system
is that it rarely aligns with the buying cycle. In fact, many high-tech
companies are engaged in a buying cycle that far surpasses 90 days, yet sales
is still held to a quarterly quota.

At the
same time, marketing is tasked with delivering high-quality leads to sales. However
most marketing people aren’t compensated based on how well they do in
identifying or delivering those leads. If the goal of marketing is to deliver
high-quality leads to sales, doesn’t it make sense to base a portion of their
compensation on this metric?

This
poorly aligned compensation model is another core issue that causes the rift
between marketing and sales. The fix here is rather simple: align sales quota to
buying cycles. If the buying cycle is 30 days, then develop a 30-day quota
cycle. If it’s 120 days, then have a 120-day cycle. The marketing compensation
model should include a performance-based component with the number of sales
accepted leads as a metric. This will motivate marketing to deliver the quality
leads that sales needs, leads that will align to the buying cycle and close
more rapidly.

One of
the biggest reasons marketing and sales fail to gel is that there is no defined
process for managing leads. Without this process, sales and marketing fall into
a vicious cycle, with sales rejecting marketing-generated leads, and marketing
being frustrated with the lack of sales acceptance.

To
alleviate this, implement a defined lead management process that focuses on:

Data (Includes customer and
prospect data)

Lead Planning

Lead Routing

Lead Qualification

Lead Nurturing

Metrics (A good place to start is
working with sales to establish a common set of KPIs that can be
measured. Ensure one of these is
marketing’s impact on revenue and pipeline)

Developing
this process should be a joint effort between marketing and sales. When both
sides put aside their talking points and focus on developing a process for managing
leads, a transformation takes place. Collaboration takes root, resulting in alignment.

Establishing
this process will also create a unified understanding of how leads are to be
handled, which leads should be sent to sales, and which leads will be held back
for further nurturing. An effective lead management process will enable both
sides to do their jobs more effectively, and will improve the overall return on
marketing and sales investments.

Marketing
and sales will never view the world exactly the same way. But maybe by coming
together to address these core issues, they can overcome the challenge of misalignment.

About
the author: Carlos Hidalgo is CEO of The
Annuitas Group, the
leading provider of lead management process development. In his role, Hidalgo and his team have
helped their clients identify over $500 million of potential revenue by
developing and implementing internal lead management processes.

Marketing and sales position continues to be a main face for B2B organization. Forrester released a statement presentation that only 8% of organization says tight position flanked by marketing and sales.

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I have to admit that marketing has its own challenges, and for sure finding a blog such as this one which sheds light on how to fix misalignment is very helpful to many. Many thanks for sharing.

18.

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